Cyprus-Forum.com

[CBBB]

North’s new movement aims to save a dying community

By Simon Bahceli
Published on June 3, 2012

A lot of people are wondering what Kudret Ozersay is up to. And when Cypriots wonder, rumours begin.

Hearing that he had formed a “social movement” using networking websites Facebook and Twitter calling for political change in the breakaway state, many have predicted the 39 year-old legal expert is about to quit his job as special representative to the Turkish Cypriot leader Dervish Eroglu and embark on a political career of his own.

But perhaps more than speculating on what Ozersay might do with his career, people are wondering what this ambitious and highly educated Turkish Cypriot, and his growing social movement, stand for.

So far, Ozersay remains deliberately guarded about the specific objectives of the Toparlaniyoruz, or the We’re Getting it Together movement, he started just over a month ago, insisting that the secret to a strong social movement is public consensus – something he believes is sorely missing in Turkish Cypriot society. In fact, Ozerday worries whether a Turkish Cypriot society still exists at all today.

“We have turned into less than a community,” he says, adding: “Our aim is for the Turkish Cypriots to start becoming a community again”.

At a meeting two weeks ago in north Nicosia, where a couple of hundred people had gathered to hear Ozersay convene a second meeting of “Toparlaniyoruz”, the slim academic called on people to express what they most felt needed to be done to overcome a growing sense of frustration and desperation among Turkish Cypriots. The themes that emerged were that politicians (of all political parties) in the north had lost the trust of their people, and that most Turkish Cypriots felt they had no control or say over the way their society was run. For his part, Ozersay told the gathering that people deserved better and that it was time for the community to re-form itself and rise up to demand an “accountable and democratic society with respect for law and human rights”.

On Wednesday, four days before meeting number three of Toparlaniyoruz, Ozersay is adamant his movement, which he says has no affiliations with any political party, is growing.

We hook up at the exotic Buyuk Han in north Nicosia where the academic is finishing up another interview with yet another journalist. He is clearly feeling the pressure of balancing university lecturing, being Eroglu’s special advisor and running a social movement. But that is how Ozersay operates, and like all who have chosen to take on leadership of the Turkish Cypriot community, however tentatively it may be at this stage, he will have his work cut out.

Listening to Ozersay, I get the feeling he wants the north to make a fresh start. He talks like a man who has seen places and administrations that work, where people are more civilised and more rational, and who look to the law to resolve issues of conflict and division. This is perhaps more impressive, coming from a man who lost his father to a Greek Cypriot firing squad the year Cyprus was divided.

But what lies at the heart of Ozerday’s social movement is his feeling that Turkish Cypriot society has been fractured between those who yearn for a reunification with Greek Cypriots, and those who crave recognition of the breakaway ‘TRNC’.

“We want a comprehensive settlement, but we should be aware of the fact that until and unless we get the cooperation of our counterpart [the Greek Cypriots], we can’t do it. It is dependent on the will of the other. The same applies to recognition of the TRNC; it is dependent on the country which will grant recognition. And when it comes to lifting [economic and political] isolation, the same thing exists,” Ozersay explains.

In short, everyone in the north is waiting for something that may or may not materialise some day in the future. Because of this, Ozersay says, not only is society divided, but development, “in every sense of the word, is on hold”.

He gives an example: “The [political] left have suspended their energy on resolving our actual problems by saying that until and unless the Cyprus problem is solved, we can’t do anything”.

“I don’t believe in that,” he says.

What Ozersay does believe is that Turkish Cypriots shouldn’t give up struggling for social change until the Holy Grail of either reunification or recognition is delivered, because “there is a lot that can be done now, and that what needs to be done is urgently overdue”.

High on Ozersay’s agenda, if he can gather a sufficiently critical mass, is a reassessment of the north’s relations with Turkey. Having spent innumerable hours of his time with Turkish politicians, diplomats and bureaucrats, he believes that much of what Turkey does in north Cyprus comes, not as a result of Ankara’s forceful insistence, but as a result of Turkish Cypriot politicians’ failure to clearly express the wishes of the Turkish Cypriot people.

“The majority of the wrong policies were enacted by the Turkish Cypriots because it was the easiest way. Politicians present things as being imposed by Turkey in order to deviate pressure from the community against them,” he says, adding: “I’m not saying Turkey has clean hands and they never made mistakes, but we created the conditions for them to do it. We led or encouraged Turkey to put into effect wrong policies because it would keep those politicians in power”. Ultimately, Ozersay believes that if Turkish Cypriots “act together” it would be possible for Turkish Cypriots “to convince Turkey” to act out policies on Cyprus that are in line with Turkish Cypriot interests, and not just Ankara’s.

But whether Ozersay is referring to Turkey’s geopolitical use of Cyprus as a way of bringing itself closer to the EU, or its newfound interest in hydrocarbon resources in the area, or even the policy that has allowed uncontrolled Turkish immigration to the north, is not clear at this stage, because Ozersay is not saying. What he is concentrating on right now is amassing a groundswell of people who feel that something is wrong and that something needs to be done.

“I really believe this is the last chance for the Turkish Cypriots,” he says, “It is a struggle for existence,” he says with what strikes me as genuine anxiety, but concedes there are subjects that are so sensitive for the Turkish Cypriots that if he went into them now, he would “lose half of my people”.

“I have to focus on things that unite and that we can get done now,” he emphasises for perhaps the tenth time.

But I can’t not ask whether, having expressed the need for a reassessment of relations with Turkey, Ozersay would also seek an improvement of relations with those with whom he might one day reunite, namely the Greek Cypriots.

“My message is not to the Greek Cypriots. My problem is the current state of the Turkish Cypriot community,” he says, adding that unless the Turkish Cypriots “sort themselves out” they would “not even be fit to face reunification”.

“I worry about our ability to trade even if the isolation was lifted,” he says, adding that ‘state’ institutions are overstaffed and so badly run because of the nepotism and patronage inherent in them that they would continue to hold back the community whether or not reunification, or even recognition, came.

But Ozersay, who has become widely known in the diplomatic community surrounding Cyprus reunification talks as a moderate with an ability and willingness to compromise, does give some clues as to how his movement would approach relations with the Greek Cypriots. If it ever came to the day that the Turkish Cypriot side takes unilateral actions on the Cyprus issue, Ozersay says, they would be motivated by a desire to “make relations between the two communities better” and “take into consideration international law”. Furthermore, he says he fully supports “the idea of adapting and accommodating the laws and regulations of the Turkish Cypriot side in line with international law” – something which he said would benefit Greek Cypriots, Maronites and other minorities living in the north.

But until this ambitious academic gets to the stage where he can enact such sweeping changes over a place run primarily as a protectorate of Ankara, he will have to continue building his power base. And that of course will not be easy in a society so fragmented and distrustful of politicians. But just maybe, with the respect he has gathered over the years working for the north’s negotiating teams, juxtaposed against the absence of public trust in the mainstream political elite, Ozersay can bring unity, and perhaps later credibility, to a forlorn north.

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/north/north- ... y/20120603

[B25]

Awww, my heart bleeds for him!
What the TCs keep forgetting is the whoever pays the piper calls the tunes. For as long as turkey is funding his arse, it belongs to turkey. The TCs are an insignificant irritation to turkey and if he is not careful he might find himself eating a bullet or two.
Erolguey, might also start getting the jitters, seeing ozer.... As trying to steam roll his position and turn against him.
Someone should remind ozer.... , and i have to question Buchelis assessment of an intelligent academic, that the TCs are no more and he has no chance to resurrect a 'TC' community. Hello Ozer .... Anyone home what is a TC?

[Viewpoint]

Gook luck to Ozersay its about tıme the younger generation produced a new leader.

[B25]

Gook luck to Ozersay its about tıme the younger generation produced a new leader.

He like you are just pissing in th wind. Trying to con TCs into beleiving tha something new can happen. Maybe he like you, just want a slice of the pie as well!

[Maximus]

I agree with some of the things he says, the Turkish Cypriots must sort themselves out and they cant make any progress or do anything without the cooperation of the Greek Cypriots and the Republic of Cyprus.

Ozersay, your 'community' has been quarantined and your community will become extinct. This is your fault and the fault of your predecessors and you will not prolong their existence with pointless plans outside of a comprehensive settlement that is not in line with UN resolutions and the EU acquis.

It is one of those do or die moments so hurry up and do or just hurry up and die.

[Me Ed]

Whilst I commend what Ozersay is attempting, it can only be achieved by asserting what it means to be a Cypriot and celebrate this in full in the face of those whose agenda it is to eliminate this.

With the opening of the crossings, it has never been easier for Cypriots both sides of the ceasefire line to communicate and organise events so that we can celebrate our common history, identity and culture.

[B25]

I find his actions rathe hypocritical, one minute he is pushing turkeys/Eroglueys policies and then suddenly wants and beleives something different.
Me thinks th guy is lost, either that o is just trying to use/abuse the TCs, like turkey did, to go up the political ladder.

[Maximus]

I find his actions rathe hypocritical, one minute he is pushing turkeys/Eroglueys policies and then suddenly wants and beleives something different.
Me thinks th guy is lost, either that o is just trying to use/abuse the TCs, like turkey did, to go up the political ladder.

yes, lost, like his predecessors, and eventually there will be a total loss and not even someone to 'lead'.

It's like the game lemmings, try to save them as they constantly march towards their doom.

The behavior of the creatures in Lemmings is based on the supposed behavior of real lemmings, who by urban legend are believed to go on migrations en masse that eventually lead to disaster. The basic objective of the game is to guide lemmings through a number of obstacles to a designated exit. In order to save the required number of lemmings to win, one must determine how to assign a limited number of eight different skills to specific lemmings that allow the selected lemming to alter the landscape, to affect the behavior of other lemmings, or to clear obstacles in order to create a safe passage for the rest of the lemmings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmings_%28video_game%29

[Viewpoint]

Which do you GCs support what Ozersay is stating or a continuation of what is going on in the north today?

[Maximus]

My money is on the TC's becoming another footnote in Cyprus's history. They will be remembered as the Cypriot Turkish community lead to oblivion by a fascist and illegitimate Donkytosh.